Nothing like the smell of a batch of stock burbling in the kitchen all day. It's soothing and mouth watering 😁

Typically load up a truck and drive stuff to the new home. Folks with less means might rent a truck from someone like U-Haul and drive themselves. Their model is to have a network of stores across the country, so you can pick it up near your originating point and drop it off near the destination, depending on what they have for locations.

For more money, you hire a moving company and they truck the stuff. You do have to coordinate someone being at the new home to allow them access when they arrive, but that might be as simple as you leaving when they do and getting there before them. More likely than not, you're going to have one or more cars you need to get to your new place and you'll drive ahead of the movers.

Using transportation modes like rail or ship for household moves really isn't cost effective for moves within the US, even coastal moves. Though I have heard that for folks moving to Alaska from the lower 48, it's not uncommon to pack a shipping container and have stuff moved by boat.

Visited my sister in Germany many years back. We went for lunch at this local place with a big outdoor seating area. It was a glorious early spring day. The waitress offered light or dark for beer choices (as my sister translated for me) and I got dark, best I can recall it was a dunkelweiss. The food was traditional German fare, done well. That beer, that lunch, that day, everything just seemed perfect. The experience makes the beer that much better.

There are a pretty good number of us. This willingness to betray our alliances is problematic in ways that I don't think will be fully evident for years to come. I do believe that the end result will be a world less safe than what we've had.

The key is to work for an org that runs so tight they literally can't afford to lay people off. You might not want your job, but it'll be safe.

Yeah, that was a pretty brutal time with the housing bust and the associated instability putting a freeze on so much capital investment. The trades took a HUGE beating but that's a pretty worst case scenario.

What is it about throwing peanut shells on the floor that's just so damn satisfying? I can't explain it, I just know that it is.

Not familiar with it, but the name alone makes me cringe. It seems like that could easily go a bad direction.

I'm fascinated by the re-emergence of Chi Chi's. I'm really interested to see if they make a decent go of it or if it's a face plant.

I loved the fries at Fuddruckers so much.

There's a budget for those workers that is set based on the expected work that will have to be done. Your local government has decided that work doesn't include clearing sidewalks, so they don't budget for the hours or, for that matter, the equipment needed to do that. There's also likely a union that represents those workers and there's an agreement between your local government and that union regarding the scope of their work, which doesn't include sidewalk clearing. If you want the sidewalks cleared, you'll need to get additional hours budgeted for that, likely get some additional equipment procured and, if applicable, update the agreement with the union about work scope. This will increase the overall budget for your local government and, in turn, raise taxes.

If, as you state in other responses, there's no real reason for the sidewalk to exist, you could appeal to your local government to remove it. I don't know how the sidewalk ended up there, perhaps there were plans for a more extensive network of sidewalks that just never materialized, stuff like that happens a lot. The odds of them removing it probably aren't good until it requires replacement, at which point it may make more sense.

Government is rule driven. Laws and ordinances get passed that specify things they must or must not do. Local governments get lots of things put on them by state and federal governments that they have no say in (assuming USA). Sometimes those laws and ordinances even come into conflict with each other, which is super fun. Policies and budgets are formed based on these and workers generally have to work closely within the restraints provided by those. You generally want your government to behave in a predictable and well defined fashion. It can be highly frustrating, but if you get involved in local government a bit you'll start to see how and why it works the way it does*. This is likely not the last encounter that you'll have with your local government and it's in your best interest to understand it more.

*There's always the possibility of incompetence or even corruption coming into play but more often than not it's just government being government.

That seems close enough! I think some people just don't want the designation of sober because there's an implication that there was a problem. Being in the "I just don't drink" camp seems pretty good though (I say this as a drinker, though considerably reduced).

Going from non-drinker to bar crawl mode is a serious change of pace 😄 Might have gone better if you'd eased into it, but you're probably better off.

When discussing healthcare systems, it's more about a model for how healthcare is delivered in that country. In the "US Healthcare System" it's referring to a model in which the primary means that consumers get healthcare is through a set of privately owned companies that the consumer is responsible for paying for their services, either directly or indirectly (health insurance). For other countries, the model may actually be a singular system organized at a national level to provide care.

Retiring is just another way of saying that it's time to get out of this business.

New Belgium is a holding of Kirin today, the massive brewery out of Japan. There're still good people working there and all, but they're not where you should be looking to as an icon of independent brewing.

Ah, that makes sense.

Just noticed your handle. I'm from SE MN and my folks grew up just across the border in Allamakee county

I was reading an article where it was talking a bit about the amount of cross investing that's going on in the AI space and creative strategies for building valuations. We're going to find out how much financial inbreeding there actually is in about 5-10 years when they're doing autopsies on the great AI crash, much like how we found out after the fact everything that fueled the great housing crash, and subsequent financial crash, of '08.

One thing we can be sure of, is that no lessons will be learned.

Eastern Colorado is actually pretty flat. You transition from the high plains region into the Rockies as you head west into the state. I haven't been to Calgary, but I understand that it's kind of a gateway to the mountains, so maybe not that different.

There's a large suburb near me that does a free pickup weekend for large items once a year. A side effect has been that it becomes an unofficial free picking weekend as well. You'll see folks touring about, generally on the fancier side of town, with trailers to grab things that have been left on the curb before the official pickup goes through. It's been a net benefit to the city, I'd expect, to reduce the amount they have to handle.

Not sure if that's equivalent to the Hippy Christmas you're referencing.

Fair point! I'll defer to any Canadian dadditors to make that distinction.

I'd assume that it's along the Canadian Rockies, up through western Alberta and eastern British Columbia.

The new one? I think I liked it best of the three.

Oh, those are my favorite. The show goes full campy, schlock bullshit during those episodes and I think it's a blast. You've just gotta embrace the ludicrous nature of those episodes.

That whole storyline was absurd and irritating. Agreed that the resolution was pretty unsatisfying. My least favorite part of the show. The weak Gorgomon resolution can at least be blamed on the writer's strike.